the beauty of hdmi is that decks w/that output are "upsampling" decks that will output 1080i from a DVD.
have you played with any of these? Do they automatically adjust the scaler to match the native display resolution of the monitor? Can the player be configured to scale to a specific rate or to not scale at all? I'm always skeptical of chained scalers.
If one has a 720p native display, which is better:
a) the panel scale up from 480p
b) the panel scale down from 1080i
c) force the player to scale to the native display rate
d) force the player to send the media rate and let the panel scale
?
Not so far off topic, I know someone who saw the HDDVD player on display and he was very impressed with the HD content but noticed that the new players also have awesome scalers. A standard DVD scaled up looked very close to the HD content so that he said he thought the extra cost of the movie on HD was only marginally worth it. I don't know what monitor was used but I assume it was 1080.